The present invention relates to roaming user profiles and, in particular, it concerns roaming user profiles stored in portable storage media.
Current operating systems for personal computers (PC's) are often able to recognize several users using the same computing environment. Systems like Microsoft's Windows 2000, for example, can manage more than one user on a single PC. A recognized user can log on to the operating system by keying in a username and a password. The system maintains a separate environment for each user such that different users may work on the same computer, each maintaining his or her own personality and without interfering with other users. The operating system maintains a “user profile” for each user. Typically, the user profile stores and defines the preferences, settings and documents of a user. These may include, the on-screen desktop appearance, color scheme, wallpaper, the icons, their shape and location on the desktop, the choices in the desktop menus, settings and preferences for using web browsers, word processors, email servers and other tools. In addition, files including, for example: email archives, worksheets, presentations, audio and video files are often part of the user profile, and this is preferable especially if these files should be hidden from other users. User profiles are usually organized as a single directory tree for each user. In Windows operating systems, the user profile of <username> is typically found in path C:\Documents and Settings\<username>. It should be noted that most files on a computer disk do not belong to any particular user. In particular, the operating system and executable application files are global and available to all users. Thus, for example, a Microsoft Word document, the Microsoft Word icon and the preferences for using Microsoft Word are typically part of a user profile, but the Microsoft Word application itself is not. Typically, user profiles occupy only a small part of a computer disk content.
In a network environment, several computers are interconnected and managed by at least one server. The connection between computers and the server may be via a local area network (LAN) cable, or via a dial-up networking connection. In a network environment, a type of user profile called a roaming user profile can be created and maintained. A roaming user profile is a user profile that is resident on the network server, and is accessible from any computer in the network. In the network environment, the list of known users is defined on the server, allowing any user to log in with a username and a password from any computer in the network. If the user has a roaming user profile, the computer to which he or she has logged in assumes the user's personality as defined in the roaming user profile. Any changes to the profile, such as adding a new document, are stored in the roaming profile and so are available when the same user logs on to the network, possibly from a different computer. Provision is often made for a computer being temporarily offline by mirroring the user profile on the local disk and synchronizing between the profile and its local mirror copy. For example, roaming user profiles are currently available under a Windows NT or a Windows 2000 network environment. A domain is a group of computers in which a username is recognized. In other words, a username belongs to at least one domain. On a computer, a username can belong to the local domain, and so be recognized locally only, or to a network domain, in which case the username is recognized on all computers of the network. The list of known usernames and passwords is maintained on the domain's network server, and parts of the list are mirrored on computers, so that users can log on when the local computer is temporarily offline.
A related concept is the Virtual Home Environment (VHE) envisioned in mobile computing. In mobile computing, the VHE is a concept whereby a network that is supporting mobile users provides the mobile users the same computing environment on the road that the mobile users have in their home or corporate computing environment. VHE is part of IMT-2000 and the Universal Mobile Telecommunication Service (UMTS). With VHE, a network, referred to as a foreign network, emulates the behavior of the user's home network and the user has the same services as he or she is accustomed to at home.
Many sites on the World Wide Web provide personalized services, and these sites require user identification to provide the personalized services. A database of user preferences and user data is maintained on the web site's web server, a concept analogous to the PC's user profile. Often, a returning user is recognized by a small file, called a “cookie”, that is stored in the user's local disk. The “cookie” is searched for and found by the web site's client software running on the user's web browser. Cookies are usually stored as part of the user profile and so are automatically able to “roam” between computers when the user profile is roaming.
Microsoft's .NET platform deals with many aspects of Web personal services. In particular .NET Passport is an initiative to provide trusted and universal authentication of users who use Internet personalized services. .NET My Services is a development platform for providing services to users over the web, for example: to make the user's music preferences available, to receive notification about availability of concert tickets, to buy those tickets, and to mark the concert in the user's calendar.
The need to provide a personalized computing environment, irrespective of the computer, is recognized and partially provided for, and vision and plans exist to expand it universally. However, all such provisions call for computers to be networked and online, be it through a LAN, the Internet or mobile telephony. Furthermore, a universal roaming profile depends on the home network exporting the user profile data over the Internet. Therefore, a user traveling between office and home will be able to continue working at home on a document started in office only if the user is online and logged on to the office network. Therefore, a portable PC cannot share user profile data unless the PC is connected to the network by modem. Additionally, a user may often need to work on a foreign network. Examples of foreign networks are: Internet cafes, computers in public places such as hotels and airports, corporate networks during business calls, and networks of institutions providing services, such as banks and medical facilities. A foreign network's ability to provide a visitor's data is dependent on the willingness of his or her home network to provide that data over the Internet, which is possible but requires logistics and poses a security risk.
Personalized data services are provided by web sites, for example: on the Web email services of Yahoo! and Microsoft hotmail. However, these services depend on the respective web services storing this data on their web server and providing the data over the Internet. From the viewpoint of user privacy this solution is not altogether satisfactory, and the absence of the web site's cookie on a foreign computer is problematic. Moreover, the legality of the cookie practice has been called into question.
Microsoft's .NET platform's Passport service assumes that personalized data will be stored in a Microsoft server. Again, from the viewpoint of user privacy this solution is not altogether satisfactory.
There is therefore a need for a solution to provide personal data and a personalized computer environment to a user that is not dependent on online networking, and furthermore provides a user tangible ownership and control over his or her personal data.